Capitalist Party of SA wants every South African to have shares in SOEs

23 April 2019 - 17:15 By Amil Umraw

ZACP was founded by 10 people who describe themselves as "positive disruptors" and who believe their innovative thinking could find solutions to many of SA's problems. Image: https://capitalist.org.za/

The Capitalist Party of SA (ZACP) has concocted a radical approach to fixing the country's embattled state-owned entities (SOEs) by campaigning for ownership of these institutions to be handed over to each and every voting citizen.

In a press release on Tuesday, the "Purple Cow" party said the mismanagement of SA's state-owned entities - there are about 715 of them - has resulted in "theft on a scale not seen since land seizures by colonisers".

The party has based its model for citizen ownership on examples from Eastern Europe in the late 1980s.

It says every registered voter should get a portfolio of shares in Eskom, SAA, Acsa, Transnet, and across all 715 state-owned utilities which, based on its calculations, should amount to a minimum value of at least R50,000 per voter.

Thereafter, the party says, citizens can sell all, or some, of their shares as they wish.

"Initially, parliament will act as a proxy for the shareholders, but this will change as shareholders assign their proxy to other shareholders, special interest groups, lobby groups, NGOs, religious bodies.

"Shareholder annual general meetings of entities like Transnet won't be held in a Sandton auditorium, but at FNB Stadium simulcast to the other major centres and on the internet," the party said.

"The best form of upliftment is to let people have money, not just services. This gives choice, and opens up horizons of opportunity. Here is an opportunity to give real economic freedom to the people. We expect the ruling elite to come up with all sorts of excuses as to why this is not feasible."